Invention
A flat slide-pantograph was invented in 1895 at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and in Germany in 1900 by Siemens & Halske. The familiar diamond-shaped roller pantograph was invented by John Q. Brown of the Key System shops for their commuter trains which ran between San Francisco and the East Bay section of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. They appear in photographs of the first day of service, 26 October 1903. For many decades thereafter, the same diamond shape was used by electric-rail systems around the world and remains in use by some today.
The pantograph was an improvement on the simple trolley pole, which prevailed up to that time, primarily because the pantograph allows an electric-rail vehicle to travel at much higher speeds without losing contact with the overhead lines.
Read more about this topic: Pantograph (rail)
Famous quotes containing the word invention:
“Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine- tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“Heredity is a strong factor, even in architecture. Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“The invention of photography provided a radically new picture-making process—a process based not on synthesis but on selection. The difference was a basic one. Paintings were made—constructed from a storehouse of traditional schemes and skills and attitudes—but photographs, as the man on the street put, were taken.”
—Jean Szarkowski (b. 1925)